The Testament of Skin
by Erinya
Summary: The Testament of Skin, and Other Apocrypha. Some truths are hard to tell, and hard to know. JE. Rated M for sexuality and disturbing themes.


**Rating** R for sex and disturbing themes  
**Pairings** Jack/Elizabeth  
**Disclaimer**: They are very much their own. I make no profit.  
**Summary**: _"I want to know everything," she whispered. "The good and the bad. I want to know the truth of you."_ Even so, some truths are hard to tell, and hard to know. No spoilers at all. Indefinite timeline. Challenge fic; prompt was _scars, a secret, and a kiss_.

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**The Testament of Skin, and Other Apocrypha**

_**testament**, n. 1. Something that serves as tangible proof or evidence. 2. A profession of belief; a credo. 3. A written document providing for the disposition of a person's property after death; a will. 4. Either of the two main divisions of the Bible. 5. (archaic) A covenant between man and God._

_**apocrypha**, n. (from Greek **apokruphos**, secret, hidden, from **apokruptein**, to hide away) 1. Writings which are considered non-canonical, not accepted as part of an official text. 2. a group of 14 books, not considered canonical, included in the Roman Catholic and Vulgate traditions as part of the Old Testament, but usually omitted from Protestant editions of the Bible._

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She pored over his body, as if his secrets were coded in the marks that had been chosen for him as well as those he'd chosen for himself, in the space of the unmarred skin between. But it was only the bloody text of piracy that was written there, and when she looked up at him with wide dark eyes and said, "Tell me," he frowned at her and shook his head. Those agonies were endured and closed over long ago; _she_ should not have to suffer them again on his account. 

"Tell me, Jack," she insisted, and pressed a long kiss to his chest, to the first of the twin knotted scars of bullets that had been meant for his heart, and then again to the second. He fancied she meant to heal them with her lips, her breath, her fingertips, and for a moment almost believed that she could. If anyone could, by will alone, it would be Lizzie. His Lizzie.

"I want to know everything," she whispered. "The good and the bad. I want to know the truth of you."

He stroked her hair, tangling his fingers in the wild golden spill of it, a treasure he had once not dared to hope would ever overflow his greedy hands. "There's a fair bit about me I'm not sure I want you knowing, love. Right now, I wager you think those nasty scars are the ugliest thing about ol' Jack."

"Except your face," she smirked, and burst out laughing at the look he gave her.

"Cruelest of all the fair! You have struck me a grievous blow, Lizzie. One from which I daresay I will not recover without the tender ministrations of the pretty mouth that dealt it. One good blow deserves another, they say--"

But she laid her fingers over his lips. "Jack," she said. "Shut up." And replaced her hand with that covetable mouth; always a fine exchange. When, finally, she raised her head to look into his eyes, she said, low, "My vain darling...you must know I find you beautiful. These marks..." She trailed a light caress down the ravaged veins of his arm. "They're part of you. And I love every one."

_There_ was a word that had never yet passed between them, save in his own casual endearments. But she said it so softly, with such certainty. Fearless. He wondered what he possibly might have done to earn such trust. "Elizabeth," he said.

"Hush. Nothing you could say could change that. So long as you speak true. So tell me. I want to hear the worst of it."

He sighed, and closed his eyes. Hers burnt so very bright; 'twas too much light to bear, if he was to confess his sins before her. For such reasons, perhaps, churches were kept dim. "I've killed men."

"I know," she said steadily. "How many?"

"Fourteen." Certain sums were not to be forgotten. "And one woman." He opened his eyes again and saw, as expected, the brief stillness of shock in her face, for all she tried to hide it. "I said you wouldn't like it all told, love."

"It's not all told yet," she said quickly. "Start with her."

"We took a slave ship," he said, and stopped. It was the last tale he wanted to tell. The images surged through his mind, a nauseous wave: that nightmare blackbirder, the filth and stench of her. A hell-ship, a horror worse than any curse wrought by heathen gods. His hands tightened spasmodically on Elizabeth's waist, and he turned his head, inhaling gratefully the scent of her hair, of her skin. "She begged me to do it. She had been...very cruelly used." Her face was etched into his mind, indelible now as it ever had been. She had not even been as old as Elizabeth had been when they'd first met; a girl, really, barely yet a woman, but old enough to be brutalized as one, and old enough to get with child from it. The last man who had used her had slit her open and torn the babe from her womb, and somehow she had not died of it by the time Jack had found her there in that fetid hold.

One shot, not wasted.

He said, with some effort, "She was naught but cargo to them. Some men are not men at all, and worse by far than beasts."

"Sweet merciful God," she breathed.

"Nothing of God there, lass." He had thought, _For such a thing to happen, God must be blind, or sleeping._ Or dead...He had been twenty-four years old, little more than a boy, newly a pirate captain.

After a pause, she said, "It was a kindness, then."

"Death? Aye. 'Twas a small kindness to make it swift, all I could give her. Not enough to match what'd been done to her; and altogether too much kindness for them who'd done it."

"Oh, Jack," she said, and found his hand, and gripped it. "Did you..."

"Nine men," he said, remembering the sick, cold rage that had driven him above, the slick-sticky sensation and sharp copper scent of blood. "And I killed them with a song in my heart, Elizabeth. It brought me joy. Know that." _Darkness breeds darkness._

"Oh, _Jack_." Tears stood brilliant in her eyes.

"Just so," he said, voice harsh. "Still think I'm a good man, Lizzie?"

Her gaze, distant for a moment, snapped back to his face. "_Yes_," she declared fiercely, dropping a kiss in the hollow of his shoulder: absolution. Was that all it took? "Of course. But it doesn't matter. I'm glad you did it."

"So'm I, love," he muttered, drawing her closer. But perhaps she was right; perhaps he _was_ good, for surely if hell could be found on earth, then so could heaven, and she was the only heaven to which he aspired. "Still, I'm a liar," he said in her ear, "and a thief, and a libertine. And I once impersonated a cleric of the Church of England and, incidentally, took advantage of the opportune moment to compromise a nun."

"You didn't!"

"Indeed I did."

"Oh, my dear." She propped herself on her elbows over him; her smile almost reached all the shadowed places in his soul. "I'm afraid we must end this, Jack. Some things cannot be forgiven, you see, and the degradation of a woman of God--"

"Was greatly enjoyed by all parties involved," Jack interjected. "Except the Good Lord; I expect that if, in fact, he had been paying this world any mind, He would have been quite taken aback to discover such goings on in his house. I can stage a demonstration, if you like," he craned his neck to capture her nipple lightly between his teeth, gratified by the sharp moan thus elicited, "and you can be the judge of just how _good_ I was. And am."

"Blackguard," she gasped. "Scoundrel."

"I rather prefer 'really bad egg,'" he said, and kissed her soundly until present sensation swelled to swamp and wash away the past.

"Wretch," she said, tenderly. Then, stubborn as ever, "I still want to know about the scars, you know."

"You will, sweet Lizzie. But not tonight. Have you not had enough truth of me already?"

"I want," she said, and caught her breath as he plunged into her.

"All of it?" he whispered; and ragged-voiced, she answered, "_Everything._"

"Yours;" burying himself in her, deeper and again, while she writ upon him her own marks among the rest, and he marked her in turn: a tale full told in two interlocking parts, true and coherent only when read together.


End file.
